Reference library
Repeated losses of PRDM9-directed recombination despite the conservation of PRDM9 across vertebrates
Paper summary
Comparative analysis of 227 PRDM9 orthologs from 225 vertebrate species finds repeated losses or partial-domain variants. Swordtail fish retaining partial PRDM9 show recombination enrichment near transcription start sites, CpG islands and H3K4me3 rather than predicted PRDM9-binding motifs. Ancestry-switch mapping used 268 sampled natural hybrids, of which 239 passed the read-count filter; median breakpoint resolution was 13 kb. The authors discuss possible costs of directing exchanges near functional elements, but these evolutionary explanations are hypotheses rather than experimentally established reasons for PRDM9 evolution.
Relevance to the project
Assistant interpretation: a genomic hotspot mechanism is not a universal recipe for choosing digital crossover boundaries. Functional dependencies and encoding-specific interfaces require independent assessment.
Ancestry transitions are historical recombination proxies, not direct per-meiosis rates or DNA-break maps. Genome-assembly quality and partial domains complicate gene-loss/function inference. Promoter avoidance is not a universal biological safeguard.
Source record
- Reference ID
- prdm9-repeated-losses-2017
- Archived version
- Publisher-hosted elife-24133-v1.pdf, 90-page line-numbered manuscript; not assumed identical to final formatted version
- Summary provenance
- reference-library/papers/prdm9-repeated-losses-2017/metadata.json · summary
- Review status
- Targeted primary full-text review; not exhaustive reading or reproduction
- Reading scope
- Targeted PDF pp.3–20 (introduction, main results and discussion; p.8 separately rechecked) and pp.32–34 (fish recombination inference methods). Title/authors checked on p.1. Remaining methods, supplements and references not fully read; figures not visually inspected.